I had an idea for a BTT question when I was taking a peek at one of my bookcases yesterday and spotted my old copy of the Aeneid in Latin sitting there. Maybe this question has already been done—but if not… Do you have any foreign language books and if so can you (still) read them?

This one is easy: NO. I used to speak and read French pretty well, but never had the desire to expand into foreign language fiction. I read for pleasure -- and that would've been more like work. The shame is that Americans typically aren't taught to be fluent in another language as a matter of rote. That's too bad.

On a side note, this made me think of spelling. While teaching DD spelling I keep coming across all the exceptions to spelling rules. We now have this: "I before E, except after C and when it sounds like "AY" as in neighbor and weigh, and science and foreign." I can't help but wonder what other words I'll tack on to the end

So... I'm not giving up my coffee. Melissa, the problem with my chocolate soy milk isn't the "milk" part, but the evaporated cane juice used to sweeten it. Though it isn't technically "refined" sugar, it's still sugarish, and given the book author's feelings on fruit juice I can only imagine how he'd feel about this.

I decided coffee with chocolate soy milk was the deal breaker for me. I did go shopping yesterday and spent $67 on fresh produce (oh... minus $9.98 for two packs of organic, nitrite free hot dogs for the DD). SIXTY-SEVEN DOLLARS. I didn't buy that much: two heads of romaine, one of iceberg, 5 lb carrots, a pack of baby bellas, five bananas, 3 lb apples, 4 green peppers, 2 english cucumbers, some grapes, 2 lb strawberries, 3 tomatoes, 2 pints grape tomatoes. That's it. Yeah, a lot, but ... not really.

"They" want us to each better and bemoan the obesity epidemic in America (I'm more likely to bemoan the cancer epidemic, but that's a topic I won't get into here), but then price healthy food so high that many people can't afford to eat properly and fall back on ramen noodles.

Anyway...

I did get some more revising done on my short story, "Pregnancy Cravings". I have them nearly finished (the first round, anyhow) and will send it back to the editor this week. I wonder what will happen first: my story will be sent to production OR it will actually show up on my author page as "coming soon".

If you don't know what happened on "American Idol", don't read any further.

So, for my QOTD:

If you're an American Idol fan, what did you think of this years show?

I'm happy Jordin won. I wanted her to win from about the middle of the top twelve. I LOVED Melinda... she was my absolute favorite because she could sing absolutely anything, never hit a wrong note and always surprised me. She wasn't *so* great during Bee Gees week, but no one was.

When she was voted out last week, I have to admit to being furious. A finale with Jordin and Melinda would have been amazing. I would have taped that to watch over and over and over. I always believed that Jordin would make a better "American Idol" -- she's young and cute and bubbly. But I always believed Melinda was the better singer.

Blake? He was my third fave. When they hit the top three, it was exactly as I had hoped. But he wasn't consistent. When he was good, he was GREAT. But when he was bad, he was utterly horrid.

I still haven't watched Tuesday's show. Nor have I seen last nights. I got my info on the winner from the online news page. I'm not sure I WILL watch the finale. I'll watch Wednesday's show because of all the guests, but ... I'm still mad about Melinda.

12 comments:

It's a shame as the UK has a similar attitude to America for teaching forign languges. It's like English is the only language in the world and we expect everyone else to learn it and understand it *scowl*

RE: AI.... I think Bob and I are the only people in America that have never seen this show. Oh, well.

BTT: I used to speak and read Spanish and Portuguese some, but writing is an entirely different matter. I never read in either language much. I had to "think" too much and it gave me a headache! Reading is for pleasure :-)

LANGUAGES: I wish the school system would start teaching languages in first grade. Kids learn second languages so easily. Their brains aren't so "set." Is S. taking a language? There's some really good software that would help her. And, I would be glad to help where I could.

Here in Malaysia I guess we are fortunate to be taught in both English and Malay for national schools. I studied in national schools. In other vernacular schools, students were taught either in Tamil or Chinese. For my case, I can read and speak Malay and English fluently. Unfortunately, I can't read or write Chinese, but speak it well.

I think English must be the hardest language to learn. Even people who know nothing BUT English have trouble with it! I can't imagine coming from another culture and language and trying to learn English.

The only foreign language books I have is my old French textbook from when I took it in high school. And I remember next to nothing about it. *g*

I stopped watching AI sometime last season, when it became so obvious that it was staged and packaged. Sorry, but...

I watched a few shows here and there this season and thought Blake was the most original and best performer. The couple of times I saw Jordin, she struck me as boring and too doe-eyed.

But let's be honest: no matter what the vote tally, there was no way Blake was going to win last night. The eccentric white guy won last season (sorry but true), plus now they get to have their "youngest ever" AI winner.

I like American Idol, but I was disappointed to see Melinda go. I thought she deserved to be in the final two, but...*shrug* Between Blake and Jordin...Jordin definately deserved that one. However, I think Blake is the most original and most creative ARTIST they've had on the show to date. And he's an AWESOME performer!

I opted to watch Lost instead of AI finale, but I have tivo so I can have both. Unfortunately for some reason my tivo stopped recording before they announced the winner so I didn't find out til this morning.

If it couldn't (and it should've) be Melinda I'm glad it was Jordin. Blake was my third fav, but this year I didn't feel strongly about any of them.

Just finished my first go-through of my July release. It was a real treat, I love the story so much!

As far as eating healthy, costwise its definitely harder, no matter what people say. Its unfortunate. My bff yelled at me because I didn't buy organic, but I can't afford to feed a family of 5 organic food. She's single and I forgave her, her mother had just passed away from cancer.